Northern Magic

by Janet Dailey

  “We won't go into that now, dad.” Beneath Cody's casual statement there seemed to be a warning.

  His father flashed a look at Shannon and shifted uneasily in his chair. “Yeah, I'm talking out of turn,” he admitted.

  Shannon idly concluded that Cody didn't feel his father should be gossiping about his friend's personal affairs, and let the curious reference to Belinda Hale go without comment. After all, it had nothing to do with her.

  “Where would you like to have dinner tonight, Texas?” Cody asked.

  She took a breath, remembering the big meal she'd had the night before, and knew she wasn't hungry enough to eat that much again. “I don't have much of an appetite tonight.” She shrugged her indifference to food.

  “I'm sure you could eat a sandwich,” Cody asserted. “There's an excellent deli up the street."

  “We'll eat there,” his father stated. “This time Cody can pick up the check."

  In spite of herself, Shannon laughed at Noah's insistence that he wasn't going to be stuck with paying for their meals a second night in a row. A surge of gratitude followed at the way this father-and-son pair were keeping her spirits up. Alone, she would have worried herself sick about Rick, but they kept the gloomy shadows at bay.

  “Okay, you've talked me into it,” she agreed, the soft laughter staying in her voice.

  Leaving the coffee shop together, they paused at the cashier's while Noah paid for the coffee. Then it was outside into the crispness of an Alaskan autumn. With a Steele on either side of her to guide her to their destination, Shannon started up the street. At an intersection she spied a word included in a store sign. Its frequent use in store names had earlier aroused her curiosity, which now came to the forefront.

  “What is a cache?” she asked her escorts. “So far I've seen shops called a fur cache, a book cache and a jewelry cache."

  “'Cache’ is an Alaskan term.” Cody pronounced it “cash.” “It is a small storage building that is elevated on poles to keep animals from reaching it. It was used a lot in rural areas for food storage, and it still is. It's become somewhat a symbol of Alaska."

  “I can see why,” Shannon replied. “It's unique."

  “Alaska prides itself on being unique,” he reminded her with a twinkling glance.

  “But you don't brag about being big,” she teased him back.

  “No, we leave the bragging to that small state down south called Texas.” A warmly mocking smile lifted the edges of his mouth. The needling was all done in the name of good fun. Shannon's sense of humor accepted that, and she laughed softly. The comparison of their home states was becoming a private joke between them—something personal and warm.

  “Here we are,” Noah announced, and stepped forward to open the door to the delicatessen for Shannon.

  A hostess showed them to a booth and left them menus. Shannon ordered a roast beef sandwich on a sourdough bun, believing that she was ordering in proportion to her appetite. When it was served, she realized she had been mistaken. Between the bun halves there was a mound of sliced beef, and the bun occupied nearly the entire plate.

  “I can't possibly eat all of this,” she protested as she viewed the size of the sandwich. “There is enough for three people here."

  “You Texans must not have very healthy appetites,” Cody chided.

  “Not as healthy as you Alaskans have, obviously,” she agreed on a laughing note, and added wickedly, “Of course, you burn up a lot of calories keeping warm during your daylong arctic nights."

  “We usually find ways to keep warm,” he countered suggestively, and Shannon decided against pursuing that line of banter.

  Picking up half of the sandwich, she reverted to her original statement. “I'm not going to be able to eat all of this."

  “Do the best you can,” Noah advised. “You need to keep up your strength. We can't have you wasting away to nothing before your wedding day."

  As she bit into her sandwich, she was conscious of Cody glancing at the diamond ring on her finger. She wasn't sure whether it was his father's remark or her engagement ring that caused him to fall silent, but he offered little conversation while they ate. She managed to eat half of the sandwich and force down part of the second half before her stomach protested that it was full and refused to tolerate another bite. As she leaned against the slatted boards forming the booth's backrest, she noticed that Cody also had left a large portion of his sandwich uneaten.

  “You didn't have much of an appetite, either, did you?” she observed.

  He flashed her a remote blue glance to acknowledge the remark, but did not directly respond to it. Instead he glanced at his watch. “It's nearly seven. Wade's expecting us.” He reached for the bill the waitress had left on the table and slid out of the booth.

  His father quickly wiped at his mouth with a napkin and followed suit. “Where did you park your car, Cody?” he asked as he politely helped Shannon out of the booth.

  “Across the street from the hotel, near your pickup,” Cody answered, and took out his wallet to pay for their meal.

  “Good. I'll ride with you and Shannon. When you bring her back to the hotel later on this evening, I can pick up my truck then. That way we can save the gas it would take to drive two vehicles,” Noah declared, satisfied that his solution was both logical and practical. Cody offered no objection to the arrangement.

  After leaving the delicatessen, they backtracked their route to the hotel and crossed the street to the parking lot where Cody had left his car. In the business district of Anchorage, neatly painted homes often shared the same block with commercial buildings, but it was to a residential area overlooking the bay that Cody drove them. The side street he took ended in a cul-de-sac, fanned with rustic two-story homes, heavily beamed and sided out of natural stained wood. He parked in the driveway of one of them and shut off the engine.

  “It's a beautiful home,” Shannon remarked with sincere praise.

  Cody directed a half smile at her as he opened his car door. “Not everyone in Alaska lives in a log cabin or an igloo."

  It was almost a relief to have him tease her again about her misformed conceptions of Alaska. He had been much too preoccupied since their evening meal. She had begun to wonder if something was wrong.

  Noah opened the front passenger door and extended a hand to help her as she stepped out of the car. “You'll like the Raffertys,” he assured her in the gruff voice that masked his extraordinarily gentle nature. “They're a nice family."

  A sidewalk curved from the driveway to the front door. Following Cody, Shannon walked ahead of his father to the sheltered stoop of the entry and waited while Cody pushed the button for the doorbell.

  The door was opened by a young boy of about twelve with dark hair and eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He was holding a fussing baby against his shoulder.

  “Hiya, Cody.” His voice was in the midst of changing octaves as he greeted Cody with easy familiarity “Come in. Dad is on the telephone and mom's in the kitchen rescuing a cake from the oven. She forgot to set the timer, so it might not be edible."

  “Hello, Mike.” Cody returned the greeting and stepped to one side to let Shannon enter the house ahead of him. Once she and his father were inside the tiled foyer, he introduced her. “Mike, I'd like you to meet Shannon Hayes. This is Mike Rafferty and his baby sister, Molly."

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Hayes,” Mike nodded. His sister began squirming fretfully in his arms.

  “I'll hold her,” Cody volunteered, and relieved the boy of his wiggling burden without a trace of awkwardness. “How have you been, Molly?” Cody asked, as if he expected an answer. The baby's dark eyes opened wide in an attempt to focus on the face of the man holding her.

  “You'd better take this, Cody.” Mike passed him a small towel. “She's been spitting up a lot. It really makes your clothes smell if it gets on them.” His nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “What do you think of my goddaughter, Texas?”
Cody asked with a trace of pride.

  “She's beautiful.” She marveled at the thick mass of curling black hair on the baby's head.

  “Molly has her daddy's coloring—black hair and black eyes,” Cody remarked absently.

  “Yeah, but she's got my mom's temper,” Mike declared. “When she gets mad, you can hear her screaming a block away. She's spoiled already."

  A woman's voice came from the living room, laughing and warm. “And look who is spoiling her? Every time she whimpers, Mike is there to pick her up!"

  Shannon turned to watch the petite, vivacious redhead approach them. “Hello, Cody, Noah. It's good to see you again.” Her green eyes swung their curious glance to Shannon. “I'm Maggie Rafferty.” She didn't wait for an introduction.

  “Shannon Hayes,” Shannon volunteered.

  “Welcome to Alaska,” the redhead responded warmly, then let her smile encompass the others. “Come on in and make yourselves comfortable. Wade knows you're here, so he should be out directly."

  A natural stone fireplace dominated the cozy room with its paneled walls and beamed ceiling. Comfortable overstuffed furniture was clustered about the hearth, spaced close for intimate conversations. A thick shag carpet carried out the gold theme of the room, a warm deep color. As Shannon sat down on the opposite end of the short brown-and-gold-patterned sofa from Cody, a tall dark-haired man entered the room from a branching hallway, his broad muscled frame enhanced by a heavily ribbed sweater of smoke gray.

  There was a rush of exchanged greetings, and Shannon's introduction to her host, Wade Rafferty. Then there was a moment of calm as Wade joined his red-haired wife on the sofa, a twin to the one on which Cody and Shannon were seated. She watched his arm so naturally circle Maggie's shoulders in a loving gesture of closeness that she momentarily forgot the question she wanted to ask about Rick. The short quiet was broken by the baby in Cody's arms as she began a fussing cry.

  “I'll take her.” Mike was quick to reach for his little sister. “She probably wants a bottle or something."

  As he lifted her out of Cody's arms and started to carry her from the room, Maggie Rafferty spoke up. “Don't let her go to sleep yet, Mike."

  “Molly takes after her mother,” Wade explained with a mocking glance at his wife. “She has absolutely no respect for time. She has her days and nights mixed up and expects everyone to march to the beat of her drum.” Then he smiled at the others. “If I want Maggie to be ready on time for anything, I have to set all the clocks in the house ahead one hour."

  “Wade Rafferty, that isn't true!” Maggie denied with mock outrage.

  “All right,” he conceded. “I only set them a half an hour ahead.”

  “That's true,” Maggie admitted with a laugh. Cody shifted position on the sofa, stretching his arm along the backrest behind Shannon. Her glance swung to him and met the silent assurance of his gaze. Briefly his hand touched her shoulder.

  “I know Shannon is anxious, so I'll ask the question for her,” he said. “Were you able to find any leads about her fiancé Wade?"

  There was a slight pause as his coal-dark gaze rested on her. “Nothing, I'm afraid,” he admitted, and dejection drooped her shoulders a fraction of an inch.

  “Not a thing?” Shannon echoed softly, and felt the warm clasp of Cody's hand on her shoulder in quiet comfort, a measure of his strength flowing into her.

  “No.” Wade shook his head and eyed her gently. “I checked the employee files for both the flight crew and the ground crew. There is no one by the name of Farris employed by us. However, I am checking with the other companies in the consortium to see if he might be flying with one of their crews. They promised to get back to me tomorrow. I'm sorry I don't have more information to give you."

  She swallowed the lump of disappointment and managed to smile. “I'm truly grateful that you took the trouble to check."

  “It wasn't any trouble,” he assured her, then attempted to lighten the atmosphere. “Would you mind telling me how you managed to get hooked up with this devil from out of the blue?” he asked, indicating Cody.

  “From Rick's last letter, I had the impression he was working for Cody,” she explained, and silently decided there was a degree of accuracy in Wade's description of Cody. That wicked glint in his blue eyes had a hint of the devil from out of the blue. “So when Rick wasn't at the airport to meet me and his landlord claimed he'd moved out of his apartment, I went to Steele Air, thinking I would find Rick there."

  “Only he wasn't working for us,” Cody carried the explanation further. “I couldn't turn a lady in distress away from my door without offering some assistance. I didn't want her to have the impression that Alaska was a cold, unfeeling place."

  “The fact that she was a young, beautiful woman had no bearing on your decision,” Wade mocked with a taunting grin.

  “She's engaged, too. Don't forget that,” Noah inserted, drawing a laugh from the others, all except Wade Rafferty. A thoughtful frown creased his forehead, his gaze narrowing slightly.

  “I haven't, dad,” Cody said, and eyed Shannon with lazy intensity. “Although I admit there are times when I'd like to overlook that small detail."

  “Do you have a photograph of your fiancé that I could borrow for a couple of days?” Wade asked. “I'll return it to you, of course."

  “Yes, I have one.” She opened her purse and rummaged through the contents for her billfold. Extracting Rick's picture from its clear plastic envelope, she handed it to Wade.

  “Rick Farris—you said that was his name?” He studied the photo closely.

  “Yes,” she confirmed, and watched him with vague confusion. There was an undercurrent running through his attitude that she couldn't place.

  Then he was smiling and the impression was gone. “I'll return it to you as soon as I can.” He slipped the photograph into his wallet and turned to his wife, deftly changing the subject. “How about some coffee, Maggie?"

  “Coffee and some streusel cake, fresh from the oven—your favorite, Cody,” Maggie stated as she rose from the sofa.

  “Sounds good, Maggie,” he said with a nod.

  “Would you like some help?” Shannon offered.

  “No, I can manage. Thank you,” Maggie refused.

  A brief silence settled on the room after she'd left. Noah leaned forward in his chair, inserting himself in the conversation. “Has there been any word about your boss and his daughter."

  “No.” Wade reached for a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table between the twin sofas. Lighting it, he studied the curl of gray smoke swirling into the air. “They've officially called off the air search, although any pilots flying in the area are keeping an eye out."

  “What happened?” A faint frown lined Shannon's forehead as she divided her glance between the two men.

  “We don't know,” Wade replied. “The board chairman of my company and his daughter left for a long weekend to fly to a remote fishing camp. The plane never arrived at their destination. It's presumed it went down."

  “I'm sorry,” she murmured awkwardly.

  “Henderson was the pilot, wasn't he?” Noah asked. When Wade confirmed that with a nod, he shook his grizzled head. “Damned good man. He knew more tricks than Houdini to keep a plane in the air. You can be sure it wasn't pilot error. I remember the time—"

  “Don't go back in history, dad,” Cody interrupted with a wry grimace. “Your memory is bound to falter."

  “My memory is as good as the day you were born,” his father protested.

  There was laughter in the glance he slid to Shannon. “Do you see what I mean? He's already wrong. I was born at midnight, not during the day."

  “Now, darn you, Cody! Quit twisting what I say,” Noah declared in irritation.

  “Are you two arguing already?” Maggie appeared with a tray of refreshments. “I haven't been gone five minutes."

  The introduction of streusel cake and coffee brought a more congenial mood to the room's occupants. The conversation swi
tched to other topics and the atmosphere became more relaxed as the shadows were banished to the far corners of the room.

  Later, when Shannon offered to help clear away the dishes, Maggie accepted. “What's it like to live in Alaska?” she asked as she followed the slim redhead into the kitchen.

  “It's an adventure.” The tone of Maggie's voice indicated that was an understatement. “Especially when you leave the city and go into the country. You certainly don't run to the corner store every other day. The isolation is harder on the women in the outlying communities than for those of us in Anchorage or Fairbanks. I don't suppose you've had much time to go sightseeing since you've arrived."

  “No, I haven't,” Shannon admitted.

  “Because of his position, Wade spends a lot of time in Valdez. Be sure to pronounce it with a long e or the natives will quickly correct you,” Maggie advised with a smiling glance. “Even with the pipeline terminal being located in Valdez, it's safe to say it isn't a bustling metropolis. Before Molly was born, I used go with Wade on his trips to Valdez. It's still a very rural area; it has the necessities but few of the luxuries.” She took the dishes from Shannon and stacked them in the sink. “It's an exciting region of the country, growing like a weed, its potential unrealized."

  “Yes, Rick said the north was America's last frontier,” she agreed.

  “It's all that and more."

  When they returned to the living room, the men were embroiled in a heavy conversation. Shannon caught Wade Rafferty's last statement, “I hope I'm wrong,” before the discussion was abruptly halted by their approach. Cody's expression was troubled and grim, but it vanished the instant he met her look, to be replaced by a quick smile.